Today, a conference committee begins hashing out differences between the House and Senate visions for financial regulatory reform. As Congress begins deliberations on another sweeping overhaul of a complex national system with broad, international implications, one would hope they are well informed about the bills over which they'll be haggling.
But just a week ago, a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission told billionaire investor Warren Buffett that "no one" has read the text of the financial regulatory reform bills, "including some of the co-sponsors."
Bill Thomas, former Republican Congressman and vice chairman of the commission, asked Buffett in a June 2 hearing what the Congress had gotten "mostly right" or wrong in financial regulatory reform. When Buffett confessed he had not read the "1500-page bills," Thomas told him no one had, so his admission was "a denial that's okay." Buffett smiles as staffers in the background chortle over the disclosure. Moments like these will not help Congress' all-time low rating among voters.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Nah. No one's read the 1500-page financial reform bills
Mary Katharine Ham found a video nugget on C-SPAN that Congressional Democrats don't want you to see. From The Weekly Standard on Thursday:
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We're hurtling through darkness not believing that we'll have insurmountable consequences for this fiscal Lohanism. When the chute doesn't open because we were sloppy when we packed it, and there is no reserve chute, we will have to hit rock bottom to stop. This offhand management of the public trust is seditious; unfortunately the public trusts too much.
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